


Prisoners Of Our Own Device

by EnvelopesYou



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Depression, Drinking, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnvelopesYou/pseuds/EnvelopesYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end comes when you least expect it. Or maybe the end just comes and you have no idea what that means at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prisoners Of Our Own Device

Close near the border of the desert is where he found himself- at least if the blinding sun pouring in through the window and the vast dunes beyond it had anything to say about it. He woke upside down, half falling off a bed he neither recognized nor cared for. Right before he slid to the floor with a hard thunk on his head. Twisting around to lean up on his hands and knees, feeling all for the world lost. And just a touch hopeless, but without explanation. When he found it in himself he crawled forward, trying to find strength in his limbs that would suggest he could stand without risk of taking another tumble.

Left arm and right leg, right arm and left leg. Over and over again until he reached a cracked and dirty wall covered in dried, withered purple paint. At least he thought it might have been purple at some point. Now it was more of a muddy grey-blue. Funny, that...

Finding himself somehow chuckling as he pressed his hands against it and slowly, shakily, raised himself up on his feet. Using the surface as a safe haven while cognitive function still seemed unwilling to return. He took that immobilizing moment to try and parse out his location.

Shitty little hotel room in the middle of nowhere. A few stories up, if the drop from the window was anything to go by. Bed unmade and a mess, sheets tangled at the corners, pillows and covers spilling out onto the floor. Broken glass by the door, the remnants of a shattered drink he thought, what with the stain that dripped all the way down to the floor. Unplugged alarm clock sitting tilted on the nightstand, drawers pulled half open for seemingly no reason. Bathroom door sitting off one hinge, lurching forward precariously as if at any moment the other would give way to its weight and send it falling down.

Mess. The room was a mess.   
And so too was he. Spying the vision of himself in the horizontal mirror resting above the dresser across the room. Hair a wild, almost unfathomable wreck- perhaps the only thing that seemed _normal_ about the entire situation. Five o’clock shadow that suggested far more than it was worth. Bloodshot eyes. Red, angry scratches along his shoulders and chest, tiny little nails, he realized, as he reached his hand up, fingers arching to try and recreate the pattern. Of feminine allure, perhaps...

The tremor across his skin was as frightened as it was drawn. Nervous and suddenly so very cornered. He could tell almost everything he needed to know, maybe save for where the hell he was and why- but at least he could paint a recreation in his head. At least something close. But the blank spots in his memory were maddening. Furthermore, the reasoning for him being in a place as awful as this, looking as terrible as he did held no credence or possibility to him.

He felt like he’d drank his entire young adult life’s worth in one evening. Suddenly with it wondering just how old he was. Or maybe how old he thought he was the evening prior. One hell of an awful migraine. Too old to be doing this rockstar bullshit. Was that what it was? Had he gotten high off adrenaline at a show and completely balked at any sense of responsibility or self?

No.   
He heard himself scoff, saw the sight of his quirked lips and shake of his head before his eyes fully closed. He wouldn’t. He’d never. ...right? The realization that he had no idea was alarming. Slowly he reached a shaking hand up to his face, pressing in before sliding it back through his hair.

When he finally felt his legs and feet underneath him he took a few achy steps forward. Everything hurt. Like he’d gotten into some bar fight with a huge monster of a man. Gotten his ass kicked twice over. _Not much of a fighter. More of a lover_. Not even these thoughts echoing in his head in a voice that sounded distinctly foreign got a twinge out of him.

Despite just getting his momentum apparently all he seemed to want to do, or perhaps be able to do, was go right back over to the bed and sit down. Damn it all. He rested his elbows on his thighs and squashed his face into his upturned palms, groan leaking out of him. Frustration more than pain, though just an iota of that in the mix as well. When he looked up again, or at least made a valiant attempt, he looked at the room again. This time searching.

No jacket.  
No phone. No wallet. No _anything_.

Just him and a mess.   
Great. Just fucking great.

When hope dimmed and died underneath the weight of a heavy but unknown burden the creak of his front door frightened him out of his thoughts. Swaying back, left hand pressing against the mattress to keep him from tumbling, his head tilted all the way back and then rolled forward onto his shoulder, almost like a child who hadn’t quite developed motor skills yet. With soft eyes he looked up at someone who seemed so damnably familiar it hurt.

Because in reality he had no idea who she was. Or why she was there.  
All he really knew was that he was glad to see her.

She looked just as sad as he felt, even though he realized then he was smiling at her. “Morning.” Her voice lifted the painful fog. Such clarity in one word.

“Morning.” His own was a groggy and rocky mess. Not even a sexy early morning rumble. Just heavy with disuse- or maybe too _much_ use the night prior. Still trying to figure that one out...

Coming into the room, she let the door close behind her, and then padded in further, quiet as a mouse, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. “You okay?” One word brightened his entire life. Two threatened to shake him. Sounding as if he was the only man she’d ever cared about.

“Yeah I’m- I’m just peachy.” Trying on a real smile that was accompanied with a giggle. Laughter only lasting for about three seconds before an itch caught the back of his throat and he slid forward to cough hard  into a cupped hand.

Her hand came up over his back, gentle and soothing. “Easy...” Back to a single word that made him feel better upon the second it registered in his ears.

When he got it together he sat up again, hands resting in his lap, just looking at her for a long time. She looked back. And things were okay. For a moment he was almost lured into that same sense of familiarity. And that things _were_ okay. But they really **weren’t,** were they? “You had a key?” To his room, he meant, since she’d just come in through the front door.

“It was open.”   
One word was precious.  
Two were sweet.

Three spiked a panic. Because that was either a lie or simply not right. What hotel doors just were _open_ these days? Maybe he was in a shitty motel... that would actually explain a lot... Except-

He cast his glance out the window again. No. Too high up to be a motel. So that left...

“What’s going on?” Because she knew, right? She had to. Maybe the only thing he _was_ certain of. But the second he asked he regretted it. She wilted underneath the weight of his question. He felt poor. Like he’d asked her something he shouldn’t have. Something he should have known better to stay away from. But sadness soon ebbed to annoyance when her shoulders rolled up in a shrug and her gaze went across the room. Anywhere but with him. But... He drew a breath, held on to it like it was the only thing he owned- may as well be, given the current circumstances. Then he let it go and reached out to pat her knee. “It’s okay.”

Her face returned to him and with it she wore a grateful smile, something that coaxed a warmer response deep inside him. He knew he’d made the right choice. So they sat there in silence for another good few minutes, just smiling at each other.

Then he dared to ask something else. “What’s your name?” If he’d had a wild romp with her the night before, no doubt this would get a glower out of her too. What kind of man was he that would take a woman back to a hotel room and forget a crazy night of sex? No man that he was- which was why he felt safe in asking. No. They hadn’t slept together. He wasn’t sure _what_ they’d done but it wasn’t that. And when she replied in sultry sweet tones his eyes closed. Head tilting again. Memorizing it. Swayed by the note of it, almost. Then nodded before speaking again. “I’m Danny.”

“Danny.” She tasted his name on her tongue for the first time. He knew it had to be so. Because the way it came out of her mouth, had he heard it any other time, wouldn’t have mattered how much he’d had to drink. He would have _remembered_ that sound. “Well, Danny,” This started out so well and then ended so horribly. “I’m sorry.”

He almost didn’t want to take that bait. Didn’t want to ask what for. He’d forgive her anyway, right? What could she have possible done to be sorry for? Nothing he cared about. Absolutely not. ...but he couldn’t keep it in. “...for what?” Tone unsure. Wavering. Scared.

He was scared.

In her eyes he saw specks of sadness. Millions of colors, all different shades of depressed mottled gray. Welling up with tears. A sharp shriek cut through his ears and he reached his hands up to cover them instinctively, eyes closing tight. In her eyes he saw the ghost of the night before, and his mind shut it out before he could wander into the memory any further.

She was sorry.  
And so was he.

He found himself in her arms weeping. Holding on to her like a frightened child, calling to their parent in the middle of the night. Scared of the monster in the closet. And in knowing that was almost exactly what he was curling up over, the answer came straight and clear. Maybe not crisp or picturesque but he knew.

She didn’t have to tell him she was sorry again, but she did. A few more times over, running her hand back through his hair as he rested his head on her lap, legs tucked underneath him. It helped. But it didn’t heal. It took a long time. A long while to come down from that fever pitch high. But what did time matter anymore?

His eyes remained shut. Useless to look through them again. Instead he stayed with her in the comforting darkness behind his lids. “Am-“ Tinged with water still as he had a hard time getting a hold of himself. “Is this hell? Heaven? Purgatory?” Things he didn’t believe in. It certainly was no version of _Olam Ha-Ba_ , if he was recalling his years in Hebrew school correctly.

Where?  
 _Where_?

“No.” Again she calmed him with just a single word. No. That was fine. None of those things. Maybe it was something he couldn’t come to understand. That was fine. His whereabouts weren’t really that important, anyway. So long as he wasn’t being whip-cracked into swimming through a lake of fire or whatever nonsense the other kids went on about in elementary school.

No... instead he was lying on a bed with a beautiful woman in a shitty hotel.   
Couldn’t possibly be hell- but if this was some form of personal heaven he had to do a lot more soul searching than he’d previously thought.

Turning on his back he blinked his eyes open, looked up at her. Comforted further as the sunlight draped just over her shoulder, casting her vision down on him. “Can we stay like this?” Hopeful when it was all he had left.

She smiled again and everything felt good. “Sure.” Running her hand back through his hair again, easing in at his temple. His eyes fluttered shut once more.

It was quiet for a long time- so long a time that he finally realized. It wasn’t the grimy hotel room or the barren land beyond it that made this picture all wrong. No... He grinned, eyes still closed. “Can’t be heaven. No music.” Then she started humming. That was when his terror met with peace in an explosion of conflict. “Fuck...”

At least they still let him curse.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the fact that this idea could obviously be further explored, and there's a lot going on here, this is all I have in me! Maybe one day I'll return... let me know if you liked it! It means a lot to me!


End file.
